Labor Market Frictions, Job Insecurity, and the Flexibility of the Employment Relationship

We analyze a search model of the labor market in which firms and workers meet bilaterally and negotiate over wages in the presence of private information. We show that a fall in labor market frictions induces more aggressive wage bargaining behavior which in turn leads to a costly increase in job insecurity. This adverse insecurity effect can be so large that firms and workers who are in an employment relationship can be made worse off by a fall in labor market frictions. In contrast, firms and workers who are not in an employment relationship and are searching the market for a counterpart are always made better off by such a fall in labor market frictions. We then endogenize the organizational structure of the employment relationship and show that a fall in labor market frictions induces a one off reorganization in which firms and workers switch from a rigid employment relationship to a flexible one. This reorganization leads to a large, one off increase in job insecurity and unemploymentjob insecurity, flexibility of employment relationships, private information

Labor Market Reforms, Job Instability, and the Flexibility of the Employment Relationship

We endogenize separation in a search model of the labor market and allow for bargaining over the continuation of employment relationships following productivity shocks to take place under asymmetric information. In such a setting separation may occur even if continuation of the employment relationship is privately efficient for workers and firms. We show that reductions in the cost of separation, owing for example to a reduction in firing taxes, lead to an increase in job instability and, when separation costs are initially high, may be welfare decreasing for workers and firms. We furthermore show that, in response to an exogenous reduction in firing taxes, workers and firms may switch from rigid to flexible employment contracts, which further amplifies the increase in job instability caused by policy reform.search, bargaining, asymmetric information, labor market reform

Strategic communication: prices versus quantities

We examine how cheap talk communication between managers within the same firm depends on the type of decisions that the firm makes. A firm consists of a headquarters and two operating divisions. Headquarters is unbiased but does not know the demand conditions in the divisions' markets. Each division manager knows the demand conditions in his market but is also biased toward his division. The division managers communicate with headquarters, which then sets either the prices or quantities for each division. The quality of communication depends on whether headquarters sets prices or quantities. This is the case even though, once communication has taken place, expected profits are the same whether headquarters sets prices or quantities

Establishing the entatic state in folding metallated Pseudomonas aeruginosa azurin

Understanding how the folding of proteins establishes their functional characteristics at the molecular level challenges both theorists and experimentalists. The simplest test beds for confronting this issue are provided by electron transfer proteins. The environment provided by the folded protein to the cofactor tunes the metal's electron transport capabilities as envisioned in the entatic hypothesis. To see how the entatic state is achieved one must study how the folding landscape affects and in turn is affected by the metal. Here, we develop a coarse-grained functional to explicitly model how the coordination of the metal (which results in a so-called entatic or rack-induced state) modifies the folding of the metallated Pseudomonas aeruginosa azurin. Our free-energy functional-based approach directly yields the proper nonlinear extra-thermodynamic free energy relationships for the kinetics of folding the wild type and several point-mutated variants of the metallated protein. The results agree quite well with corresponding laboratory experiments. Moreover, our modified free-energy functional provides a sufficient level of detail to explicitly model how the geometric entatic state of the metal modifies the dynamic folding nucleus of azurin

Organizing to adapt and compete

We examine the relationship between the organization of a multi-divisional firm and its ability to adapt production decisions to changes in the environment. We show that even if lower-level managers have superior information about local conditions, and incentive conflicts are negligible, a centralized organization can be better at adapting to local information than a decentralized one. As a result, and in contrast to what is commonly argued, an increase in product market competition that makes adaptation more important can favor centralization rather than decentralization

Labor Market Frictions, Job Insecurity and the Flexibility of the Employment Relationship

We analyze a search model of the labor market in which firms and workers meet bilaterally and negotiate over wages in the presence of private information. We show that a fall in labor market frictions induces more aggressive wage bargaining behavior which in turn leads to a costly increase in job insecurity. This adverse insecurity effect can be so large that firms and workers who are in an employment relationship can be made worse off by a fall in labor market frictions. In contrast, firms and workers who are not in an employment relationship and are searching the market for a counterpart are always made better off by such a fall in labor market frictions. We then endogenize the organizational structure of the employment relationship and show that a fall in labor market frictions induces a one off reorganization in which firms and workers switch from a rigid employment relationship to a flexible one. This reorganization leads to a large, one off increase in job insecurity and unemploymentjob insecurity, private information, flexibility of employment relationship

Centralization versus decentralization: an application to price setting by a multi-market firm

This paper compares centralized and decentralized price setting by a firm that sells a single product in two markets, but is constrained to set one price (e.g., due to arbitrage). Each market is characterized by a different linear demand function, and demand conditions are privately observed by a local manager. This manager only cares about profits in his own market and, as a result, communicates his information strategically. Our main results link organizational design to market demand. First, if pricing is decentralized, it is always delegated to the manager who faces the flattest inverse demand function, regardless of the size of market demand. Second, even when pricing can be allocated to an unbiased headquarters, decentralization is optimal when markets differ sufficiently in how flat the inverse demand functions are. Finally, decentralization is more likely when, in expectations, local managers disagree more about prices

"Dein Körper ist dein Haus" - "Make the body really healthy, and in time you are free to do anything you want to do"

Mit meiner Untersuchung möchte ich zeigen, wie die Krafttrainingskultur mit medizinanthropologischen Konzepten zu „Heilung“, „Gesundheit“, „Krankheit“, „Schmerz“ und „Wohlbefinden“ miteinander in Beziehung gesetzt werden können. Das Erkenntnisinteresse meiner Arbeit war die Fragestellung „Welche Motive, beziehungsweise welche Motivationen liegen der Ausübung von Krafttraining zugrunde?“. Ergebnisse meiner Untersuchung sind unter anderem die Kategorien: „Leistung“, „Schönheit“, „Gender“, „Schmerz“, „Verletzungen“, „Supplemente“ und „Wohlbefinden“. Demzufolge fokussierte sich ein Kernstück der Untersuchung besonders auf durch Medien, Marketing und Werbung suggerierte kulturelle Körpernormen, an denen konform diesen Vorstellungen durch „Schönheitshandeln“ „Bilder des Selbst“ geformt werden. Überdies wurde das Krafttraining im historisch-politischen Kontext analysiert, in dem der leistungsbereite Körper als „Arbeitsmaschine“ zum Instrument von Modernisierungsprozessen fungiert. Inwiefern Bewegung zum Gesundheitszustand von Menschen beiträgt, versuche ich anhand eines Vergleichs gesundheitspolitischer Maßnahmen und empirischer Beispiele zu verdeutlichen. Dass der Körper das Subjekt der Konstitution von Kultur wird, wurde in Anlehnung des Paradigmas „embodiment“ von Thomas Csordas (1990) verdeutlicht. Mittels Methodenpluralismus (visuelle Anthropologie, teilnehmende Beobachtung, leifadengestützte Einzel- und ExpertInneninterviews und zur Datenauswertung die Inhaltsanalyse nach Mayering) konnten aufschlussreiche Daten generiert werden. Die Untersuchung fand in verschiedenen Fitnesscentern in Wien („Holmes Place“, „McFit“, „WorkOut“) statt. Das „Kieser Training“ wurde in die Analyse mit einbezogen, um die regionale Bandbreite der verschiedenen Fitness-, Wellness- und Gesundheitsvorstellungen darlegen zu können.My research shows in how far weight training and medical-anthropological concepts like “healing”, “health”, “illness”, “pain” and “well-being” converge. The cognitive interest of my paper was the question “Which motives, or rather which motivation, form the basis of weight training?” The results are among others the following categories: “achievement”, “beauty”, “gender”, “pain”, “injuries”, “supplements” and “well-being”. Consequently a major part of my study focuses on the cultural standards of the body which are determined by media, marketing and advertising these standards serve as models for our “action to obtain beauty” and for our “image of the self”. In addition weight training was analyzed in its historical and political context, in which the motivated body serves as an instrument of the processes of modernization. Furthermore I try to clarify in how far an active way of life contributes to people’s health by comparing healthcare measures and empirical examples. In addition, I try to explain that the body becomes subject to the conception of culture, following the analysis of Thomas Csordas’ paradigm of „Embodiment” (1990). In this paper I chose to make use of an eclectic pluralism of methods, using visual anthropology participating observation, interviews based on guidelines of individuals and experts. To analyze my data I used a content based on analysis according to Mayering. During my whole research I participated actively in the observation which took place in various gyms in Vienna („Holmes Place“, „Mc Fit“, „WorkOut“). I have also decided to include the so-called “Kieser Training”, to show the various concepts of fitness, wellness and health in the regional context

Rad23 escapes degradation because it lacks a proteasome initiation region

Rad23 is an adaptor protein that binds to both ubiquitinated substrates and to the proteasome. Despite its association with the proteasome, Rad23 escapes degradation. Here we show that Rad23 remains stable because it lacks an effective initiation region where the proteasome can engage the protein and unfold it. Rad23 contains several internal, unstructured loops but these are too short to act as initiation regions. Experiments with model proteins show that internal loops must be surprisingly long to engage the proteasome and support degradation. These length requirements are not specific to Rad23 and reflect a general property of the proteasome